tobacco, and strike me a light." Then he pulled away at the gurgling hooka, now and again raising himself to look at the porpoises tumbling in the water, and hummed a song of the loves of Krishna:—
"When late to Brindabun, O Krishna! I came,
"Your home there, alas! I found only a name."
As it was the ebb, the boat dropped quickly down-stream and the boatmen had no occasion to exert themselves: one sat on the edge of the boat; another, bearded like an old billy-goat, keeping his look-out on the top of the cabin, sang in the Chittagong dialect the popular song which goes:—
"E'en the earring of gold shall loosen its hold,
"By the lute-string's languishing strain cajoled."
The sun had not yet set when the boat reached its moorings at the Deonagaji Ghât. Four boatmen, panting and puffing with their efforts, lifted Baburam Babu, a mass of solid flesh, out of the boat, and set him safe on land.
Beni Babu received his relative very courteously and begged him to be seated, while his house servant, Ram, at once brought some tobacco he had prepared for him. Baburam Babu was very fond of his pipe: after a few pulls he remarked: "How is it that this hooka is hissing?" A servant who is in constant attendance upon a man of intelligence soon becomes intelligent himself: Ram, divining what was wrong, put a clearing-rod in the hooka, changed the water, supplied it with some fresh tobacco, sweet and compact, and brought it back with a larger mouthpiece. Finding the hooka placed by him, Baburam Babu took entire possession, as though he had taken a permanent lease of it, and as he puffed away, emitting clouds of smoke, chattered with Beni Babu.
Beni.—Would you not like to get up now, sir, and take some light refreshment?
